Month: December 2016

house demolished hands improving healing taking place

Last night was the first night since I have been back from Sarasota that I didn’t dream of moving and boxes and lots of stuff. Demolition has been completed on the house. My hands are much improved but have not returned to normal yet. Numbness mostly diminished. Slight pain in the meaty part of fingers near palm but mostly the pain is in the last part of finger joints, near fingertips. Way, way better. It is definitely going away. Now I have a cold. Pretty sure this whole thing is related and was some sort of toxic reaction to all the pesticide, dirt, dead rats, and rat and cockroach feces, not to mention the 12 hour days of heavy labor every single day for a month.

story idea – more

What sparked this idea was that I had lost my phone, temporarily, in my storage unit. I was thinking about the things I wouldn’t be able to retrieve. Then I was thinking about Mom having lost her phone and that made me think about my finding it at some point and being able to see whatever was on it. That led me to the idea…

Along the same storyline of the digital hoarders that I began earlier, what if the AI “angel” who was assigned to a human got so frustrated that he decided to make it so that a human’s digital presence vanished upon their death? Maybe there would be a window of time before it happens or maybe it would happen right away, but everything would be gone. He was trying to help the humans free themselves from the hoarding but he was also and mainly trying to get out of doing so much work.

The problem is that then people would lose their heritage and would never learn their legacy. This could create all sorts of problems.

The hero of the story would try to undo the “angel’s” code. Is that hero a human or a machine? What is the outcome?

dead elephants

In my dream last night I was driving on Siesta Key and I thought I had better go to see if they had started the demolition on the house. As I headed that way I saw a bunch of dead elephants. They weren’t bloody or anything, just dead like cut in half and stuff. It wasn’t gory. I never made it to the house. This big ogre guy, like 300+ pound guy, was coming after me and attacking me. He bit my hands and it hurt but after he bit them they felt slightly better. I kept trying to wake myself up. In one of the falling back asleep parts of that dream I was flying away from the bad guy but I kept finding myself trapped in places with roofs. Then I found myself in a place with a roof that came off and there were people there that could see me. I got away.

Tonight I called my Mom to tell her about the Publix gift certificates that I had found in the house being honored and she told me that today they had started the demolition on the house. They had taken the roof off.

story idea

…the evolution of hoarders into the digital age, in a way…

At some level of joining with the source we are assimilated back into the main machine. Once processing becomes smooth enough for “us” to disappear we are essence and have become one with the Universe. Part of that assimilation process involves making meaning out of our lives. Sometimes this is more straightforward than others. Then there are the hoarders…

With the evolution of artificial intelligence all “humans” were granted AI “guardian angels” who are responsible for organizing their thoughts and making sense of things. Sometimes this has worked better than others. Sometimes it ends up with cleanup events where a program has to quickly go through massive amounts of data, some useful and some junk, to try to determine what to keep and what to get rid of so that source can determine whether or not the function of that human was met.

Hoarders became less accumulators of tangible items and increasingly accumulators of digital items. Sure, those items take up no space, comparatively, but at the level of the machine they still take up plenty of space and should be organized accordingly otherwise they are a useless jumble.

Edit: On 2022-03-29 I found this article that talks about the same thing. I really should make my story.

life mission statement

I’ve been trying to figure out how to pull my experiences into a book at some point and this recent question by a friend got me thinking that it may be part of the equation. My first instinctive answer to this question is probably bizarre by most people’s standards, but the more that I think about it, the more it seems like the only answer I have to the question “What is your life’s mission statement?”

My life’s mission statement is to heal my karma and heal the karma of my parents, so that I do not ever have to return to Earth and may join with the Universal Spirit, or God, in Heaven, at the level of essence, or however that works when my life as flesh in this cycle has completed. To me it seems like I was never supposed to really be born. Apparently I was supposed to be, since it happened against all odds and since I am still here for some reason, also against many odds. The strongest reason I can think for me to exist is so that my parents can go “to Heaven” (or whatever happens when a soul reaches completion) one day. They both have karma that needs healing and I feel like I can help somehow by the things that I do in my life. Unfortunately, along the course of my life, I have created some of my own karma that also needs healing. Hopefully I will take care of that while I am here as well. I will have to since I don’t plan to have any children to do it for me.

It seems like I should perhaps find a way to share some of the experiences that I have had, especially the more traumatic ones, in such a way as to perhaps be helpful to others. This is ultimately the best thing we can offer the world from our suffering. It is our gift to the world. I am learning how to give my gift.

I’m quite certain this process of cleanup and organizing that I have gone through with my Mom is a huge part of it. I’ve done it so many times in my life and it is such a huge part of what my life evolved as that it can’t be inconsequential to my mission.

no pics of the den before

It saddens me to realize that I didn’t take any “before” pictures of the den. I have no pictures of all of those books on the shelves, none of which I got to keep, most of which had been pretty much destroyed in one way or another.

I’m sure that God is somehow looking out for me by not letting me have any before pictures. Perhaps I would have been greatly saddened by seeing them, all of those books that I had always looked forward to being mine one day. I am greatly saddened, regardless, however. I remember them. I remember so many of them and I remember how they were so destroyed. I can’t help but wonder now, though, in the absence of photos, if I would have, if I should have, tried to save more of them. There is no space for stuff. I don’t have any space. I did the right thing. It still makes me so sad.

Every bookshelf was full. I have pictures of all of the empty bookshelves, after I had thrown all the books away. I just don’t have any before pictures. I probably didn’t think to take any because I had started that room when Mom and Morris were there, knowing that I would be able to do that room without a lot of pushback. I got an empty Avon box and just kept filling it up and going to the dumpster, back and forth and back and forth. That was what probably made my hands start to hurt, carrying all of those heavy boxes by just the edge of the box.

Every bookshelf had a layer to the back of the books, one to two inches deep, of shredded paper from where the roaches and rats had eaten the books. Most of the spines of the books had been chewed off. There were silverfish scurrying about everywhere and a few large, live roaches back in the shredded mess. As I got to the back layer of the bookshelves, I would put a box at the edge of the shelf and grab a broom and sweep all of the mess into the box. It was a thick black dust of roach droppings mixed with so much shredded mess, sometimes an entire box full of this stuff per bookshelf. So many wonderful books were destroyed. After I was over halfway done with the room, really more like 2/3 done, Mom said something about “are you checking inside the books first?” My heart dropped. I hadn’t really been. I feel like I would have seen something if it was in there, but I was in such a fit of frenzy, in retrospect, that I might have missed something. After she said that I found a book that had some photos in it and I checked every book thereafter. I found a will that she had written a very long time ago, before I was born, and then I found more photos. I wished she had mentioned that sooner.

It wasn’t until the next day that I realized I had not taken any before pictures. I can never get that experience back now. I can never see all of those books on the shelves ever, ever again.

// this is the revised version that I posted to FB
I’ve been looking back over pictures of the house and I didn’t take as many before pictures as I should have. I took pictures as I finished rooms. I don’t have any pictures of the den. So many bookshelves, filled with books, all of which were ruined in one way or another. So many books I had hoped would one day be mine. I don’t have a single picture of anything until I cleaned the bookshelves off entirely. I have one picture of a small area of shredded mess, one tiny little area of one bookshelf.

I don’t know why I don’t have any pictures of that room “before”. It makes me sad. It was a lot of work, putting all of those books into an open box and then dumping the box in the dumpster, back and forth and back and forth, sweeping up the shredded mess of roach droppings and rat-shredded paper that was a couple inches deep against the back of the bookshelves, behind all the books, many of whose spines had been entirely chewed off by the rats. Floor to ceiling bookshelves, the length of the room. That was the room that should’ve been mine but never got to be, because it was filled up before I was old enough to have my own room. I loved those books though. No pictures. I still can’t believe it.

I went through the folder from the 2001 cleanup event and found a tiny bit of one shelf, pre-rats, where I can make out a few books. I guess that is all I am gonna get. I was so proud of myself to have gotten behind the door and made that flat area on the cot and the entrance to the room clear. Junior classics, bottom shelf. That is the same shelf from the picture way above, behind the books. Really going to bed now. Some day I will read the junior classics at the library.

second day home after house cleanup – back to work

Post written at 20161207-1235 but predated to reflect the appropriate day.

All of my dreams the night prior were of sorting through and packing boxes at the house. Every single one. I do want to be able to remember the task, so I guess that is ok. I can already tell that being here removes me from it. Also, trying to convey it to someone else is largely unsuccessful. There is no way to describe the ordeal effectively to someone. It cannot be properly experienced without having gone through it. I guess it doesn’t matter. Nobody really needs to understand and appreciate what I did besides me.

Working was a challenge. I am definitely at a handicap now because of the problem with my hands. I hope they heal quickly. I can’t properly grip the chiller for the white wine bottles and I can’t effectively carry as many plates as I could before. Just grabbing a pitcher of water to pour hurts. This has to heal and right away. I am nervous about the pain I will have to endure as a bartender.

I just went over and grabbed the notebook so I can remember to practice my cursive writing after I finish this journal entry. I think that is important.

I would like to remember more of what the process was that I went through at the house. I think the details are going to be important.

I had to make very quick decisions on everything. Like, as in split-second decisions most of the time. Everything was dirty. There was a layer about an inch deep of roach droppings and rat droppings and decaying and decomposing rats on the floor. As I went through an area I would sweep the floor to make it seem more clear. That clarity pushed me onward in the pursuit of order. I soon learned that decomposing rat remains look, or are shrouded in, a mound of shredded looking stuff: paper and carpet and just unidentifiable mess. As you sweep it with the broom it happens that eventually a rat tail or some bones or a skull is revealed. This happened on and on and on. It is a good thing I don’t really have a problem with spiders, because they really were everywhere. Thank goodness I didn’t see that many live roaches, just a bunch of droppings and remains.

I guess I am getting sleepy. I had better try to write in cursive for a bit.

first day home after house cleanup

This post was written 20161206-0919 but I changed the date to reflect the day it describes. By the time on this post I was long asleep.

All I felt like doing on my first day back was sleeping. I got unpacked the night before but there were still a few little things on my desk. I never really put them away. I made it to the bank, thankfully, or else I would’ve bounced something. I got my checkbook register up to date. I created a balance sheet in Google sheets for the cleanup.

All I had to eat in the apartment was some instant oatmael, the packet of salmon that mom had given me and some greek yogurt. I didn’t feel like going anywhere or doing anything but sleep. I finally took a shower in the evening, washed my hair, shaved and plucked my eyebrows. That made me feel slightly better, but not much.

I had to go to Ted’s to clock in, so I stopped by CVS afterwards and got some Kashi bars and some Advil PM (the brand name this time, in case it works better).

I kept thinking about the stuff in the attic and the tree out back. I wish I had climbed the tree and I wish I had made that day worker guy, Thomas, drag the stuff down from the attic, all of it. Part of me wants to catch a round trip to Tampa and zip car over there for a day and do those things. I would have to decide very soon. I texted Chris, the buyer, to ask about when the actual demolition will be taking place because I was thinking about this. He never wrote back. That guy is on my shit list. He told me he would give me $15/hour. I knew he wouldn’t. I tallied up the hours and it came to 275.5 hours total. The cheapskate gave me only $400. That is not even enough to pay my petsitter. Jerk.

My hands were still numb and sore all day. I used the handheld massager on my forearms and the infared light. I slept with a heating pad under my low back and kept the infared light by the bed for my hands.

I have, since I got back, decided that I need to get better at cursive writing. I will practice every day. My Mom’s handwriting is so beautiful. All of those letters that I found in her script made me realize I need to get better at it.

house cleanup day 27

20161204 07:30-12:00 (4.5 hours)

Post was written at 20161205-1522 but predated to reflect when the work was done.

I went to storage to rearrange the Avon room some more. I unpacked a few more boxes and stacked the plastic drawer things. Mom made me leave two empty boxes there for her to put things in to give to Sue. ugh.

I went back to the house to drop off the other empty boxes. I took a last look at the house. I wished I had the energy and time to get up in the attic, but I just couldn’t. I’m too tired and too sore and it is too late and I have to get back.

I took some pictures of the house and cried with Mom at the front door. Saying goodbye to my childhood house for the last time ever made me very sad. Then we went to Harbor Towers and I put the fax/printer back on the sofa and blocked the passage so she wouldn’t fill it up with stuff.

She gave me a sandwich that she had made, a chicken patty with grilled onions. It was good.

I stopped at Dad’s on the way out to give him the Shape-O toy for Nico. He gave me $100 and I ate some soup he had made. I helped him move a plant back inside.

I got on the road. It was a rough drive for the first half as I was really tired and I kept thinking of things. So much on my mind… I meant to climb the tree in the back of the house and take a picture. I never got to do that and now I will never be able to. I wanna go back. I wanted to get those suitcases from the attic and find more Coppercraft up there. I wasn’t done, but I had to leave. I was very upset.

At around 6:30 I called and talked to Paul. We talked for a couple hours. That helped pass the time.

It took me a couple hours to get everything unpacked. I’m glad I didn’t bring more stuff home this time. I’m so tired of everything. I will have to go back within a few months though.